A very disingenuous use of the data by the EU Commission to make the UK look bad. The main cause of the subsidy is the fact that the UK applies the minimum rate of VAT to home heating costs rather than the full amount. When Ken Clarke in John Major's Government tried to apply VAT at the then current 8% rate to home heating fuel there was a massive media campaign accusing them of wanting to freeze pensioners to death. It is obscene that this continues to this day, and that the biggest users gain the most which was not the stated intention of the campaigners who wouldn't accept a flat payment addition to the pension as compensation. This still needs to be rectified but is another political sacred cow that needs slaughtering along with the "triple lock" on pensions given by the Coalition Government to trump Gordon Brown's "double lock" to buy the "grey" vote.
The figure of £10.5bn is way out of date given the change in the UK's energy balance towards renewables.

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The worrying thing is that the world’s economy is predicated on people buying things they don’t really need. A tax on income is regressive; it kills enterprise and initiative and I prefer tax on purchases. The more affluent you are the bigger and better things you buy and the more tax you pay. When coupled with low or no tax on essentials it’s a good system (IMHO!).

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A very disingenuous use of the data by the EU Commission to make the UK look bad. The main cause of the subsidy is the fact that the UK applies the minimum rate of VAT to home heating costs rather than the full amount.

Subsidy is becoming a much abused and manipulated term. It used to be clear, a subsidy was a government paying an industry or a company some money to provide something. The government paid out some cash to subsidise something.

Now it's been so distorted that even things which are being taxed, with businesses and consumers paying taxes to the government, gets campaigners claiming its being subsidised to try to help their cause, which is clearly non-sense. Taxing something less than something else does not mean it's being subsidised, it's just being taxed less.

The fact we pay zero VAT on food doesn't mean the government has subsidised my dinner, or that because we don't pay VAT on water, that the government is subsidising me taking a bath.

Back to EVs though, there is going to be a problem for politicians and all of us eventually, that they are not being taxed highly enough - very little tax on the fuel compared to ICE, low road duty, company drivers paying far, far less tax than ICE and now potential the VAT payment going. A shift from ICE to EV is going to create a huge loss of tax revenue which will need to be filled, once they're more established I'd expect the tax burden on EVs will have to rise quite significantly.

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I still firmly believe that the externalized costs of burning FF are vastly higher than what the government collects in taxes on them. Health issues like cancer, asthma, allergies, costs of oil spills, loss of biodiversity, climate warming.... These costs are astronomical. If we go full electric, costs for society will be so much lower, we can do without the taxes on FF. In the meantime, go after Big Oil to pay for the mess they left behind to get us over the hump.

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While we can debate whether fossil fuel taxes cover their externalised costs, those taxes are going to governments and are needed to pay for public services, so if they disappear then either new taxes will need to be introduced or spending and services will need to be cut.

In the UK fuel duty raised around £28 Billion a year (that's just duty, VAT increases the total further), now if we all stopped burning fuel tomorrow I doubt the NHS, or other parts of government would see their costs fall by the same amount.

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When I first buy my first ev, in 2017 the charger were free at 90 % of them... I said is ok to pay more in beginig, than with free fuel get some money back... With the fosil car will pay it again or twice paying the fuel... Now is oposite.. 10 % free charging... and there are very busy... And wich are payble are 4 time or more expensive than home charging... Take a look at Ionity... from 8Euro /charge now is ENORMES no one charge there, only if u have some deal with thay or u ar forced... In my Country we get the highest help from gouverment... 10k euro. But with this price for networks charger is not much...

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I dropped off a friend at Enterprise in North Norwich yesterday. There was a model 3 sat there. I told my friend that he should ask for that, 150 pounds per day was the reply. So no go obviously. It might be worth it for a long trip I thought.
As it turns out they bait and switched him from...

Interesting read here about the new incentives in place for car buyers in Germany.
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/germany-doubles-ev-incentives-excludes-ice-cars-stimulus-program
"FRANKFURT -- Germany is doubling incentives offered to buyers of battery-powered as part of a 130...